* Machu Picchu is located at an altitude of 2,400 meters (7,875 ft) above sea level. * Often referred to as "The Lost City of the Incas", Machu Picchu is the most known symbol of the Inca Empire. * It is located on a mountain ridge through which the Urubamba River flows. * Machu Picchu is one of the New Seven Wonders Of The World. * The site was built around 1460 but abandoned as an official site for the Inca rulers after a century. * The site was forgotten by the world until 1911, when it was discovered by Hiram Bingham, an American historian. * Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary in 1981. * Machu Picchu was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. * Machu Picchu is built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls. * Its primary buildings are the Intihuatana, the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows. * Machu Picchu received great deal of attention after the National Geographic Society devoted their entire April 1913 issue to it. * An area of 325.92 square kilometers around Machu Picchu was declared a 'Historical Sanctuary' of Peru in 1981. * Machu Picchu is one of the most important archaeological sites in South America and a frequented tourist attraction in Peru. * Machu Picchu comprises of around 140 structures. * The Intihuatana stone located at Machu Picchu is one of many ritual stones in South America. * Researchers believe that Intihuatana stone was built as an astronomic clock or calendar. * In 1911, some people were found living on the site and a number of female mummies were also discovered.
Machu Picchu is one of the most renowned sites located in the country of Peru. It is a pre-Columbian Inca site, which is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley. It is believed that the initial residents of Machu Picchu died within 100 years of its establishment, due to small pox. It was then captured by Spaniards and destroyed later. As it is a significant place culturally and spiritually, Machu Picchu was included by the World Monuments Fund on its 2008 Watch List of the 100 Most Endangered Sites. For some more interesting and fun facts about Machu Picchu,continue to read this blog.
Machu Picchu, the “melting pot” of the Incans, governed a vast majority of the western side of South America. They ruled mostly in and near Peru and the AndesMountains. Machu Picchu developed the name melting pot because it was to The Incan Empire like New York City is to the United States of America.Many possibilities exist for what Machu Picchu was used for.These include a royal retreat, a country palace, a summer palace, or a place called Camp David.Camp David would have been devoted to the Incan sun god.In 1450, Incan came to a very high mountain ridge.This was where the Incans built Machu Picchu, an estate for emperor Pachacuti.Machu Picchu was surrounded by three tribes.These include the Amazon, The Chanca, and the Apurimac.Many of the Incans were architects, engineers, and mathematicians who worked hard for their empire.When Machu Picchu was first discovered, Agustin Lizarraga, a landowner from Cuzco, was visiting Machu Picchu.Cuzco, the ancient Incan capital, was a three day hike away from the UrubambaRiver.Machu Picchu is one of the most unique and beautiful places in the world.The life on Machu Picchu, the architecture, and the discovery of Machu Picchu are all very intriguing.
Incans dominated life on Machu Picchu.The first emperor of Machu Picchu was emperor Pachacuti.He was the emperor Machu Picchu was made for.He owned Machu Picchu as a royal estate.He ruled in 1460.Another name for Pachacuti was Pachacutec, which means, “he who shakes the earth”.Pachacutec was also the Quechva’s Incan language.First, Pachacuti subdued his neighbors from the Cuzco region.Then he began to conquest.This was what he set his mind on doing along with rebuilding Cuzco and designing the new Incan empire.He conquered areas of Serria, the Peruvian highlands and the south shores of Lake Titicaca.Another emperor was Sapa Inca, which means, “the ‘only’ emperor”.He appointed governors to rule each area of the empire.The eleventh Sap Inca emperor was Huayna Capac.He ruled for eighteen years.Talnuantinsuyu, another Incan emperor, ruled in the fifteenth century.He ruled from Ecuador to Chile, and called his empire the Land of the four Quarters.Another emperor was Paucar Libiac.The remarkable Machu Picchu was once a royal estate and “country palace” for the Sapa, emperor, Inca.The society of the Incans had many parts.The ayllu was a clan with all of the parts of the village.The puric was an ordinary farming laborer.The mit’a provided labor to the town.Every puric did a few weeks of work. The mit’a built and repaired roads, bridges, government buildings, irrigation ditches, canals, and temples.People such as masons, architects and engineers oversaw the mit’a’s work.The acllas was a group of chosen, young, beautiful Incan women who served the Sapa Inca, and caught their spit in a bowl.The Incan religion used shrines, royal houses, high, granite spine rocks, and a cloister.The cloister was what women used to cook for their sun god.The government of Machu Picchu had an emperor called a Sapa Inca, and governors for each quarter of the empire.Paucar Libiac means “he of the lighting struck rock”.Paucar Libiac started out as any other, as a baby.When he was born in a hut it was known that he was destined for greatness.This is because there was a storm when he was born, but his father brought him to the lake to clean him anyway.Somehow, the lighting did not scare him.When he was two years old, he was still breastfed and carried everywhere until he could walk.In 1517, Paucar was six years old. This was the end of his carefree youth. The people no longer called him Wawa, but Paucar Libiac. He went through a ceremonial hair and finger nail ritual, and must work for a living. He lived on a one-hundred fifty by 300 foot piece of land. When he started walking, he was given an onka. An onka is a rectangular piece of alpaca wool with head and arm holes. He also received yacolla, which was a woolen cape worn over the onka to keep him warm. Incans could speak with their own language, but did not have a written language. Although, they did accumulate knowledge in hydrology, hydraulics, drainage, foundation engineering, and accounting. They counted in tens, and kept records on colorful cords called quipu. The life of the Incans on Machu Picchu was a complicated and interesting one.
Machu Picchu was home to some amazing architecture.To plan what they did, they made extremely accurate scale models with topography.The models were first made of clay and stone.The towns all had a plaza in the center of the town for meetings.An Ashlar was a square block.It was huge, cyclopean size even.It was ten feet in length and higher than a man.Machu Picchu was a huge mountain up 1000 feet in the air.Most of the buildings were granite, and there was much farm land and terraces.Machu Picchu was fifty-four miles northwest of Cuzco.It was 9000 feet above the sea level in an area called the “cloud forest”.It was in the rugged Montana region east of the AndesMountains.The buildings on Machu Picchu were all made of cut stones that were fitted tightly together.The stones weighed more than fifty tons!A ton is 1200 pounds.Hard stones that made buildings like jigsaw puzzles, kept the buildings standing through earthquakes.This is because the walls did not have mortar between them, so there was no mortar to crack during the earthquake.The Incans used trapezoids in their buildings.Trapezoids are four-sided figures with two sides parallel and two sides not parallel.Trapezoids were used in doorways, window alcoves, and niches.They used the trapezoid’s shape because it had a broad end for the foundation, narrow ends for wall support, and a top for a roof.The types of buildings and structured areas of Machu Picchu were houses, temples, baths, storage rooms, palaces, cemetery’s, grain processing facilities, plazas and tubs.Many artifact vessels such as plates, bowls, bracelets, pins, earrings and tools such as knives and axes were found on Machu Picchu.They were made of bronze, copper, silver, and ceramic clay.Cable cars were made of thick willow branches for the baskets, chawar for ropes to suspend the baskets, and trees and boulders to tie the ropes to.The cable cars were called huaros, uruyas, and tarabitas.Farmers on Machu Picchu grew maize, beans, chili peppers, avocados, potatoes, and peanuts.Their livestock were pigs and ducks for meat, llamas to carry things, and alpacas for wool.The Incans were great engineers.They changed land such as mountains, jungles, and deserts to rich farm country.They made over 14,250 miles of paved roads plus, a complex water system.Two spring systems, primary and secondary, were used to transport water.The primary spring system was connected into a hillside.A stone wall stood around it, fourteen point six miles long and one point four miles high.It flowed into a rectangular stone trench, about point eight
miles wide.The secondary spring system was a bit further away than the primary spring system.It entered a canal eighty miles west of the primary springs.The springs were raised up to an elevation of 2458 miles high.Canals lead from them that were 749 miles long, at a slope of about three percent.One of the fountains on Machu Picchu that the springs lead to was conserved especially for the emperor.An awesome thing is that the spring systems still work.Terraces on Machu Picchu were five to two miles wide.It was easy to operate the springs with having terraces.Incans, like Romans, used aqua ducts.The water moving to Machu Picchu was planned carefully and precisely.The springs were all on steep mountains with high elevation.A few ways existed to how the Incans built bridges.Sometimes they plopped a tree trunk over a narrow stream.Sometimes they would put stones over gaps and rivers.Both ways worked well.Along with their complex water systems, the Incans had complicated road systems.The Andes road went through mountain passes and valleys, and struggled with steep mountains, treacherous paths, and rugged areas.The coastal road system went near the water and in the desert, and faced obstacles such as dry deserts and high winds blowing sand.All of the roads were paved with stone and connected to cities.Roads were the principal transportation, and with more than 15,625 miles of them, it makes perfect sense.Government officials and battalions of soldiers traveled the roads.Also did the people in shipment and trade.Tampu were transportation huts on roads that were at key crossroads.Each was equipped with a lodge.Chasquis were postal men who traveled the many roads.Without Machu Picchu’s fantastic architecture, the world would not be as wonderful, because it would not have one of its seven wonders.
In 1911, a man named Hiram Bingham discovered the city that was believed to be lost.This city was Machu Picchu.Hiram Bingham was a mountaineer and an archaeologist.He was born in 1875 and died in 1956.He traveled to Peru to climb mountains, and because he was fascinated by the “lost city”.He climbed through the huge rainforest with his new found native guide.In Hiram Bingham’s first expositions, he explored the valley of the UrubambaRiver.He blasted a trail through some river gorges.He collected and transported cocoa, sugar, rubber, and sweet potatoes back to his country.During his 1911 exposition, he looked for the last capital of the Incans, Vilcabamba.Vilcabamba was on Machu Picchu.At the time, a few farmers were living on the mountain.Hiram Bingham was the first to clear the site.All that was there were ruins.Vilcabamba was the last capital of the Incan people.It was a “rump” state, developed after the area was conquered.It was on the same mountain as Machu Picchu.It had wide valleys, and it sat on a high, narrow ridge.The roofs on buildings there were tilted and looked a bit Spanish for unknown reasons.Hiram Bingham wrote in his journals about Vilcabamba.It was a royal city that was completely lost.Many items were found on Machu Picchu.Obviously, ruins were found.They were ancient.Also, a place believed to be Espiritu Pampa was found.Espiritu Pampa was the Plain of Ghosts; scary!They found Machu Picchu in 1200 A.D.Machu Picchu started with a small Incan tribe, but expanded to a population of eight million people.
One of the most unique and beautiful places in the world is Machu Picchu.It is so amazing that it is one of the Seven Wonders of the World.Its purpose was mysterious because it was not in the Spanish conqueror’s chronicles, or journals.Also, most of the writings and records on Machu Picchu were destroyed.The Incans fell through a long series of events.Huayna Capac was emperor, but then he died.A war broke out, and his two sons fought over the throne.The elder son of Huayna Capac, Atahualpa, won the throne during the Civil war.Machu Picchu was defended by a flanking mountain saddle, sheer cliffs, and the rapids of the UrubambaRiver.Unfortunately, Francisco Pizzaro was greedy for gold.He kidnapped and held for ransom Atahualpa.For a ransom, Pizzaro took a room full of precious gold.Then, he killed Atahualpa any way, and took over the Incan Empire.Since the discovery of Machu Picchu, it has become the most important archeological site in the Americas.Recent tourism on Machu Picchu has blossomed.North Americans and Europeans mostly are the tourists.Also, people who can afford it, travel there from anywhere in the world.Sadly, most Peruvian cannot travel there, for it is a poor area.Machu Picchu fascinated many people through the many years it has been standing on that mountain in Peru.
ary 1, 2001), [online] URL: http://www.elibrary.com. [date of access: October 14, 2009]
